Kristin Read online

  ‘Huh ... strange, I have dreams that I save lots of people.’

  She fell asleep and he picked her up, carried her through to the spare room and lay her down on the bed. He pulled the duvet over her and switched out the light.

  At an indeterminate point during the night he was woken by light flooding into his room from the hallway, against which she stood, silhouetted.

  ‘I don’t wish to sleep any more,’ she said.

  ‘ ... Bad dreams?’

  ‘No. I want something, need something. I have very strong feelings, feelings I haven’t felt before. They disturb me because I cannot understand them.’

  He swallowed hard and swept back the quilt. She looked at him, puzzled, for a moment then followed her instinct and slipped in beside him. He peeled off her T-shirt and bottoms and threw them aside feeling her naked, febrile skin meld to his, her eager breath whisper around his ear. He closed his mouth over hers but she responded immaturely, slobbering like a pubescent girl. But despite her sexual naivety there was a raw, animalistic purity to her lovemaking that left him breathless, as did the temperature of her inner body, which was uniquely frigid, ungiving.

  She looked deep into his eyes, a faint sneer playing at the corner of her mouth as he entered her. It seemed calculated, deliberate, as if an unwritten script were being acted out. A piercing white light flashed within the featureless wells of her eye sockets. And then she began to writhe in ecstasy, lifting him high with her pelvis and crashing him down, lifting him up, crashing him down, thirsty for his seed, and when he’d filled her icy, alien hollows, when they’d finished, she held him and cried like a baby, refusing to let go. He had made love to two different women.

  Creation, an ugly voice rasped in her head, as she dozed on the chest of her semiconscious lover. ‘Creation,’ she repeated. Then the repulsion began — abhorrence of every atom of his being. Concentrate! commanded the presence. Only half thy purpose has been fulfilled. Concentrate on his organ of circulation, halt his mortal pump. End him! Now!

  She listened, kissed him gently on the lips and obeyed, detestation flowing through her veins, hatred distorting her face.

  He convulsed and grabbed at the agony in his chest as his heart faltered. But she steeled herself. She defied the presence, incurring its wrath, willingly absorbing the terrible pain it inflicted upon her in retribution, and he began to recover.

  ‘I don’t know what you are or why you want me to harm him, but he has shown me kindness, love, and I will not hurt him for you,’ she whispered ... Thou wilt do as I say! Kill him now, fucking disobedient whore! ... ‘No, I will not, and I’ll wipe your memory of him clean. You will never ask this of me again.’

  Then the voice was gone, and her head fell blissfully silent.

  She placed her ear close to his mouth — his breathing was slow now, normal. Somehow, she found she was able to look inside his body and saw that his heart, though clearly strained, was undamaged. But it looked an unhealthy heart to her. She rested her head directly above it and fell into a tortured sleep.

  Six

  He couldn’t remember asking her to stay. Three weeks later she was still there and the arrangement seemed permanent. He took her shopping, bought her anything that was still obtainable: clothes, make-up, perfume — things she’d never had and knew nothing of.

  The world crisis eased. Fearful of pre-emptive strikes, the eastern antagonists had backed down. But peace maintained by the promise of aggression is always fragile and humanity continued to hold its breath, awaiting resolution, or oblivion.

  The morning of the eighth of February would be one that Thom would never forget. It was the beginning.

  He picked up a loaf of wholemeal bread, some dates, a few toiletries, plus a bottle of bourbon and handed Tariq Akhtar a fifty pound note.

  On his doorstep he inserted the brass key into the lock, turned it a double-click counterclockwise and pushed open the door. Something had altered. Irrevocably. It was cold and still, like something lay dead inside. Thom called out her name but she didn’t answer. He climbed the stairs: when he reached the top and crossed the landing he would find her in the lounge, sprawled upon the red leather sofa she adored, or perched at the kitchen table drinking coffee, to which she’d become addicted. But she was in neither place and the silence hung in the air like a lead curtain. The rush of blood pressure filled his ears.

  Then it started ... the most disturbing sound he'd ever heard.

  He followed it to the bedroom and put his ear to the closed door. Guttural croaking, like an iniquitous prayer, came from inside. ‘ ... Kristin?’ he choked.

  The mantra continued.

  ‘Kristin!’ He rapped on the door and the murmuring stopped.

  Thom rested his hand on the handle and pulled it away fast; it was freezing. Quickly, he levered the handle downwards and threw the door open.

  She was sitting on the edge of the bed, eyes bloodshot, skin as white as a spectre, her complexion waxen.

  ‘ ... I heard something ... a noise ... a voice?’ he stuttered.

  She stared inanely at him, her left eyelid drooping, and he wondered if she’d suffered a stroke, like his mother? The symptoms were identical.

  ‘Kristin!’ he shouted, shaking her shoulders. ‘Are you all right?’

  Her mouth gaped lopsidedly, unnaturally dark spittle leaking from the corner.

  ‘Kristin!’ His eyes darted around the room. They froze upon sparkling, metallic beads that ran down the window wall. The beads gained in mass as they neared the floor, forming a rivulet that flowed over the skirting board and onto the carpet, where they’d solidified.

  Standing before the wall he reached forwards and touched the lump; it was as cold as ice. Behind him, Kristin moaned.

  Something was missing. The crucifix. The silver crucifix his mother had given him the day his father died. A chill blew through his soul. He screwed up his face; it would have taken a blowtorch to reduce the heirloom to this, but there were no burns on the wallpaper. There was no sign of heat at all.

  He pulled his jumper sleeve over his hand and prized the silver from the wall. It left no mark. ‘Kristin ... what happened ... what happened to this?’ he shouted.

  Her head dropped. Her whole body shook.

  ‘Did you hear me? Kristin ... Kristin!’

  ‘Melting, running, dying,’ she mumbled, her lips thinning aggressively. Something jerked her head up by her hair and she gasped with shock, her cast monochromatic, her black eyes enlarging disproportionately.

  He backed away and dropped the molten cross.

  ‘ ... Yoooou!’ seethed a voice born of hell. She brought her hands to her face, emitted a primal scream and flew backwards onto the bed as if caught by a violent, unexpected blow to her head.

  Darkness fell. Whatever possessed her had gone. But he could not stay with her that night. He made his bed on the lounge floor, next to the double radiator. Swaddled in a reeking, moth-eaten sleeping bag he downed two food-spattered cans of strong beer he’d found at the back of the fridge, lay back on a cushion and lit a cigarette.

  His hands still shook. He would never understand what had happened in the bedroom. It defied understanding. All he knew was that for a few, terrifying moments she’d become something that didn’t belong in this world, something from another, abhorrent reality, something anathema to him, that sickened him to the core of his being. Fatigue overcame him.

  In the early hours of the morning, as the sun cast its first milky rays upon his face he dreamt again, but not of war or destruction. Banging, clawing, like something desperately trying to escape captivity invaded his subconscious mind. At first it was incidental, irritating, like a mouse scratching at a floorboard, but quickly grew to a frenzied, mammalian crescendo. Then it stopped. He groaned, rolled onto his side and his imaginings faded.

  Some hours later he blinked awake. The sun was higher in the sky and its warm radiance filled the room. The television boomed from the lounge.

  Thom entered
the room and sat at the table at far end of the room, staring at the back of her head. She didn’t move.

  In a special feature the Archbishop of Canterbury, Aldous Waldegrave, was in mid-conversation with the BBC current affairs presenter, Douglas Jennings. ‘ ... So what you’re saying, Archbishop, is that man is not in control of his own destiny, that this is ultimately decided by God?’

  ‘Yes, indeed.’

  ‘ … But the terrible weapons of destruction that endanger the world have been built by the hand of man, to destroy man.’

  ‘That is so, but remember that God is inside each of us.’

  Jennings, a lifelong atheist, shifted in his chair. ‘ ... Well then maybe God is responsible for the weapons that threaten his own creation, Archbishop?’

  ‘You misunderstand. I’m saying that God resides within all of us, within every man, woman and child on this Earth, even within non-believers such as yourself, and he will not allow a holocaust to annihilate his creation.’

  Kristin’s back stiffened.

  ‘ ... But we must all help God, we must look into our hearts, our souls and do what is right.’

  ‘Fucking heretic!’ grunted the dry, inhuman voice.

  Thom stood abruptly. He crossed the room, passing slowly around her until he saw a face drained of all colour.

  ‘ ... So inside Kim Hae Kyong,’ Jennings persisted, ‘Within the hearts of the terrorists in the Middle East, inside people such as these, you believe there is goodness, you believe there is God?’

  ‘Yes, God is present, he is always present.’

  Thom recoiled as her eyes skinned over, whitening like a cooked fish.

  ‘ ... And it is my firm belief that our Lord Jesus Christ will be our redeemer, as he was two thousand years ago.’

  Kristin howled like a banshee as a web of black veins appeared on her temples. She staggered to the window clutching her head and stared down onto the street below, her eyes charged with loathing. He followed her, stiff and pale as a wraith.

  From behind the beech tree on the corner a figure shuffled into view, dressed in black. He knew the old woman — a nun from St Magdalene’s Convent.

  Kristin began to cry through her rage. Tears coursed down her blanched cheeks from swollen eyes. She gripped the sharp, bare wood of the sill like a vice, her blood blackening as it spotted the blue carpet.

  Suddenly, the nun groped at her left arm, her legs buckled and she crumbled to the hard stone.

  In the road, Thom cradled the head of the stricken woman in his arms. ‘CALL AN AMBULANCE ... QUICKLY!’ he pleaded, but Kristin stood impassively on the other side of the glass, and there was nobody else to hear him. ‘Can I do anything to help?’ he asked the nun. She focused on his face and her eyes stared wide with shock that transformed into pleasure she’d never know before.

  ‘ ... You have already helped me,’ she smiled weakly. ‘Thank you my saviour ... my Lord.’

  Her smile endured when she slipped away from the troubled world around her moments later.

  An ambulance arrived, called for by a Polish student from a basement flat a few doors away. Then a police car. A medic leapt from the ambulance and crouched, feeling for a pulse.

  ‘ ... You’re too late, I’m afraid,’ Thom said.

  ‘Can you tell me what happened, sir?’ the police officer asked.

  He shook his head.

  ‘Did you see the incident?’

  ‘From up there.’

  The officer fixed his eyes on the window.

  ‘ ... Did the young lady see the incident, sir?’

  He hesitated. ‘Yeah ... she saw it.’

  The medic pulled a trolley from the vehicle and the officer helped him lift the nun’s body onto it before pulling out a notebook.

  ‘Can you tell me what you saw, sir?’

  ‘I think it was a heart attack. She went down suddenly.’

  ‘Cardiac arrest,’ the medic confirmed. ‘Usually fatal at this age.’ He covered her over with a grey blanket and secured thick, leather straps to hold her body in place. Then they slid the trolley into the ambulance.

  The police officer walked forwards in silence and stopped beneath the window. He met Kristin’s gaze and stood motionless.

  A white light dazzled from behind the window pane. Something seemed to force the officer’s head to one side and he struggled to keep his balance. His face distorted. Without uttering another word he returned to his car and drove away. The ambulance followed, then the student, and Thom was alone in the street.

  He climbed the stairs and looked into the lounge. She hadn’t moved. He spoke her name but she didn’t respond. He moved closer, tried again, but she stood in silence, possessed.

  Thom retreated to the bedroom, closed the door and sat on the bed, burying his face in his hands. He’d never seen any one having a heart attack before, had never seen anybody die, never imagined he would hold somebody in his arms as they died: It had to be sheer coincidence that the nun had suffered the attack where and when she did. There wasn’t any other explanation. “My saviour ... my Lord?” His head spun.

  He looked straight ahead and seized.

  Long gashes disfigured the Indian hardwood door. There were traces of dried blood within the grotesque grooves. On the carpet lay a small, shiny object, flecked with remnants of a black coating. He picked it up and placed it in the palm of his hand. One end was ragged, bloody. It was a fingernail.

  Thom left the bedroom and opened the lounge door. She was lying in a crumpled heap beneath the window. Her flesh looked bloodless. Quickly, he felt her wrists — her pulse was strong. He carried her to the bedroom, lay her on the bed and picked up the bedside phone to call for a doctor, but she started to come round, extending her tongue like a lizard. He poured her a scotch, lifting her head to help her drink and she coughed her way through it, regaining consciousness. Something made him glance at her fingers — the nails were all intact, manicured with glossy black polish, and he cursed his doubt, his growing insanity: But the little fingernail of her right hand bore no polish.

  At four-thirty, as she slept, the telephone rang.

  ‘Hello, Mr Sharman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My name is Carl Weston, I’m the director of Blackheath Royal Infirmary.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s concerning Mother Superior Mary Clayton. I understand you were the first one on the scene?’

  ‘I’ve known only one other case of this type in over forty years of practice but it can happen, and it’s always a shock when it does.’

  He listened intently.

  ‘The mother superior’s body was placed in a casket pending post-mortem — routine under the circumstances of her death. Well, the thing is that as the mortician was leaving the morgue he heard a sound. He traced it to the mother superior’s casket and opened it and, well, Mr Sharman, her heart had apparently restarted and despite the length of time her brain was without oxygen, more than two hours, there was no evidence of cerebral damage. In this regard we believe medical history has been made.

  ‘The mother superior is now in recovery, she has no living relatives but St Magdalene’s Convent and the police have been ... ’

  The receiver fell from Thom’s hand. He walked down the stairs and out the front door, leaving it swinging.

  Thom lay awake for most of the night, watching her chest gently rise and fall. She had intoxicated him, and despite everything he knew if he were to wake in the morning and find her gone it would gradually eat away at him like a cancer, until nothing was left. He couldn’t live without her now. It would be the end for him.

  Seven

  At ten-fifteen in the morning, whilst Kristin bathed, the doorbell chimed. He slid the bolt, turned the knob and tugged the door towards him. Mother Superior Mary Clayton stood on the step. A minute elapsed. Neither spoke.

  He turned and started back up, stopping half way, where the steep, uncarpeted stairs turned sharply to the left, to check if she was following, to make sur
e she was really there.

  They sat at the dining table facing one another, as the sun streamed into the room in elongated, dusty shafts.

  ‘I don’t understand what happened, Mr Sharman,’ she said, puncturing the silence.

  ‘Thom, please.’

  ‘I’m seventy-two, Thom, but I’m in good health and I have no history of heart trouble and ... ’ Her head dropped forwards and she clasped her hands tightly together. ‘I died. I was pronounced clinically dead. They tell me I’m something of an enigma.’

  ‘So I understand.’

  ‘Death had taken me. But now I’ve seen what happens after one departs this life I’m not afraid of it anymore, in fact I welcome it. Everything seemed so clear.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘I walked out of the darkness into a beautiful flower garden, with cherry trees in full blossom and small stone bridges crossing turquoise streams.’

  He smiled.

  ‘I was no longer wearing my habit and I was younger — much younger. I passed under the shade of a tree, looked up and saw my mother, my father and two sisters sitting on the daisy-covered grass. They were all much younger than they’d been when they died too. We embraced, we cried. But this wasn’t imaginary, it was real, it was happening, I could feel the warmth of their bodies, the sun on my skin, the gentle breeze in my hair.

  ‘But just as I’d almost accepted this new existence ... I saw your face.

  ‘My father, especially, begged me to stay but I knew that my work in my earthly body wasn’t complete and that I had to return, and so I told him that although I loved him dearly and longed to join him he’d have to wait a little longer. And then I woke up — in that metal box.’

  She stalled, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. ‘I know that just before I collapsed, outside your home, I was aware of something unimaginably evil close by and ... ’ The blood left her face. ‘ ... I am aware of it now.’

  A door opened. Kristin walked into the room and glared at the mother superior. She shivered wildly and her face discoloured, deforming with repulsion.